The Wine Curmudgeon

Barefoot, flipflop, and the wacky, wonderful world of wine trademarks

Regular visitors here know how the Wine Curmudgeon feels about wine companies that sue other wine companies over similar labels and similar names. Curmudgeonly, of course.

The most infamous lawsuit of recent years was the faceoff between the company that owns Cristal, the mega-pricey Champagne, and the $7 Spanish cava, Cristalino. But there have been a fair number of others, including Anheuser-Busch vs. an Argentine wine producer called Budini, and YellowTail vs. the Wine Group, who were fighting whether a kangaroo looked like a wallaby.

As much fun as these were, they pale in comparison to what could be the next big trademark and tradedress lawsuit in the wine business -- if E&J Gallo and the Wine Group square off over two fabulously successful brands, Gallo's Barefoot and Wine Group's flipflop. More, after the jump:

Does wine make food taste better?

Norton thinks Chianti makes all the difference in the world

Usually, when the subject of wine and food comes up, it's about pairings -- what goes with what, and often in such nuance that it scares the hell out of beginning wine drinkers. Which may be one reason why wine and food pairings are becoming increasingly less important to many wine drinkers.

The Wine Curmudgeon has been pondering this for a good while, trying to figure out a way to write about pairings that wouldn't drive new wine drinkers crazy (as part of my resolution to make the blog more accessible to people who are new to wine).

Which led to the thought: Are we putting the cart before the horse? We're telling people to pair certain wines with food under the assumption that the food will taste better. Is there any evidence to support this?

In other words, when I'm drinking an unoaked chardonnay with roast chicken, does the chicken taste better than if I had been pairing it with sweet tea or a soft drink (something I see very often in Dallas, where restaurant diners seem to drink more of the last two than the first). The answer: No one knows for sure. More, after the jump:

Test your wine knowledge

This test, called The Wine Game, is courtesy of Berry Bros. & Rudd, the British wine merchant. It's not especially easy, and making it more difficult is that it asks some very British-oriented questions; we don't, after all, deal much with sherry on this side of the Atlantic. Click on the Wine game link to start.

Having said that, it's fun to do, and even has a snooty English butler to guide you through it. Which, of course, is yet another reason why there will always be an England.

A perfect score is 120. I've done it a couple of times, and haven't come close. This may not be as much a relection of my wine knowledge as it is my inability to click the proper links to answer the questions correctly. And a tip o' the Curmudgen's fedora to Olivia Wilder, who sent this my way.

 

Wine terms: Vin ordinaire

What do Americans call the kind of wine that they drink every day? Oh, that's right -- we don't drink wine every day.

But there is a term for it -- vin ordinaire, a French expression that means cheap wine for everyday use. Or, ordinary wine, as opposed to fine wine from Bordeaux and Burgundy, which is traditionally reserved for special occassions.

The term vin ordinaire has its roots in the French wine classification system. Each French wine region grades the quality of its wines, and wine that isn't from one specific region is labled Vin de Table. Many European countries have a similar classification, and one of the goals of the on-going European Union plan to reform the continent's wine laws is to make this more consistent across the various countries. In this, the Vin de Table wines are being replaced by wines labeled Vin de Pays or IGP. More, after the jump:

It's true -- Americans don't drink much wine

The World Health Organization, which tracks alcohol-related deaths, does an annual report detailing alcohol consumption. The results are always intriguing; the 2011 report noted that "one-in-five men in the Russian Federation and neighbouring countries die due to alcohol-related causes."

The Wine Curmudgeon mentions it here because it sheds a very bright light on something that has come up quite a bit on the blog over the past couple of years. To all of the hullabaloo about the U.S. and its status as an important wine drinking country, the WHO report says, "not really." Alcohol consumption rates in the U.S. lag most of the world, and wine consumption in the U.S. lags beer and spirits consumption. In addition, says the WHO report, countries in the Americas (which would be us), had relatively stable consumption levels.

This is not marketing-driven puff designed to make everyone in the wine business feel better about themselves. These are facts from WHO, an organization that could care less about scores and toasty and oaky. So the wine business can pat itself on the back as much as it wants (which it does), but the facts show the U.S. is not a wine drinking country and doesn't appear to be heading that way. And very few people, other than me, seem bothered by this.

Best yet, there's a map of world booze consumption, courtesy of The Economist magazine (and a tip o' the Curmudgeon's fedora to Lew Perdue at Wine Industry Insight, who ran the map last week).

Wine prices in 2012

Consumers have been able to walk into wine stores over the past four years and find terrific bargains -- displays of 2 for $10 and 3 for $20 wines that were well made and worth drinking, bins of marked down and discounted wines, and $40 wines that cost $20. Sadly, though, that all may be about to end.

Wine prices look like they're finally firming after four years of recession-induced declines. The changes are still tentative, they don't necessairly hold true for all parts of the business, and they may not be as noticeable in some parts of the country as in others. In this, it doesn't look like prices will be higher as much as the obvious discounting will end. But, after interviews with retailers, wholesalers, wineries and analysts, it doesn't look like $10 wine is the new $100 wine any more. Instead, there's a new paradigm: The search for value.

"Wine drinkers are going to have to look harder and wider to find deep deals on known items," says Christian Miller of California's Full Glass Research, who tracks wine prices and consumption. "There will still be values, but they won't be as easy to find. They're going to be in undiscovered wines."

After the jump, why this is happening and what it means:

Winebits 210: Cheap wine edition

It's not that easy finding blogs and websites that do cheap wine. There aren't many to begin with, and those that do exist are usually shilling for on-line wine retailers or are abandoned or infrequently updated. Here are three, though, that do cheap wine well in the run-up to the 2012 $10 Hall of Fame:

• GoodCheapWines.com: Not sure where this one comes from or how the wines on it were selected, but it seems reasonably legitimate for a site apparently designed to drive traffic to an on-line  retailer. Most of the wines are $12 or less, and include some regulars here -- Cristalino, Evodia and La Vielle Ferme among them. The commentary isn't bad, either. Consider this description of Pennywise Pinot Noir (which sounds like I wrote it and is spot on): "As long as you’re not uptight about what a Pinot Noir should be, you will enjoy this very fruity, almost poppy wine. A great wine for non wine drinkers."

• Good wine under $20: This review site has won a variety of awards for its content, including two prestigious American Wine Blog awards. The format is tight and concise, it isn't afraid to review grocery store brands, and the wines hit the price points as they should (though I'd argue that it's not that hard to find good wine for $20). One surprise, though: The blog has not been updated since the end of October, which may mean its creator, Deb Harkness, has moved on to other things.

• The Reverse Wine Snob: This Minneapolis-based blog, which focuses on reviews, believes that "Wine doesn't have to be expensive to be good!" Which, other than the exclamation point, is a fine sentiment. The upper level is $20, but there are plenty of $10 and grocery store wines on the blog, including Smoking Loon, Woodbrige and Flip Flop, a Barefoot knockoff. Jon Thorsen, who runs the blog, makes a serious effort to find inexpensive wine (which I know isn't easy).